Generating test execution records automatically

Use test execution records to specify the execution environments for each test case and to track the status of each test case run. A wizard is provided for generating test execution records automatically.
Before you can generate test execution records, you must have at least one test case.

To generate test execution records automatically:

  1. Open an existing test case by doing one of the following:
    • From an open test plan, select Test Cases from the Table of Contents; then, click the name of the test case you wish to open.
    • From the left sidebar, point to the Construction icon (Construction) and select View Test Cases; then, click Run to view all of the test cases in the project or use the View Builder to narrow down the list; finally, click the name of the test case you wish to open.
  2. From the open test case, select Test Execution Records from the Table of Contents, and click the Generate New Test Execution Records icon (Generate new test execution record).

    This starts the Generate Test Execution Records wizard. Once the wizard has started, you can cancel at any time by clicking the X in the upper right corner.

  3. In Step 1 of the wizard, select an Owner, Test Plan, and Test Milestone from the lists.

    Test Milestones are the various phases or iterations in your test plan. Test Milestones are only available when you select a particular test plan.

  4. If you have previously defined your test environments, click Reuse Existing Test Environments, select the test environments to reuse, and click Next.
  5. If you have not previously defined your test environments, click Generate Test Environments.
  6. Select one or several environment attributes from each column.

    The number of test execution records created depends on the number of attributes selected, the level of coverage that you choose, and the Advanced Properties (Inclusions, Exclusions, and Weightings) that you select.

    Note: Advanced Properties may not be visible until you select at least two attributes from one of the columns of attributes.
  7. Select the desired level of coverage.

    Use this setting and the Advanced Properties setting to fine-tune the test execution records that will be generated.

    • Choose Minimal to ensure that each selected attribute is covered at least once, with no attempt to cover specific combinations of attributes. For example, if you select one attribute from three columns, three test execution records are created, ensuring that each selected attribute is covered at least once.
    • Choose Medium - pair-wise interaction to ensure that each combination of paired attributes is covered at least once.
    • Choose Large - three-way interaction to ensure that each three-way combination of attributes is covered at least once.
    • Choose All - all permutations to ensure that all combinations of attributes are covered at least once.
    Note: The coverage options only become available when you start selecting attributes. The greater the desired coverage, the more attributes and columns you must select.
  8. Click Advanced Properties to display a window with three tabs: Inclusions, Exclusions, and Weightings.
    • Click Exclusions to specify the attribute combinations to explicitly exclude, for example Safari browser running on Windows® XP.
    • Click Inclusions to specify the attribute combinations to always include, for example Internet Explorer 7.x running on Windows XP.
    • Click Weightings to set the weight or importance of each attribute relative to the other values for that attribute.

      For example, you can assign greater weight to Windows XP than SUSE Linux® to ensure that at the very least Windows XP will be tested.

  9. Click Next.

    The wizard creates a preview of the Generated Test Environments from which the test execution records will be generated.

  10. Select the test environments that you plan to commit to and click Next.

    The wizard creates a preview of the generated test execution records.

  11. Select the test execution records that you want to keep.
  12. Optionally, decide how you want to group the generated test execution records by selecting one of the choices in the Group By list.
  13. Click Finish.

    The wizard generates the test execution records according to the criteria you have selected.

  14. Click Save to add the test execution records to the test case.

After the test execution records are generated, you can select one and run it.

Test Execution Records - Examples

The following table shows four different sets of settings for generating test execution records. In row 2, the Coverage is changed from Minimal to Medium. In row 3, three more modifications are made, and in row 4, only one more modification is made. Each change results in an increase in the number of test execution records that are created.

Table 1. Examples of test execution records.
Example Browsers selected CPUs selected OS selected Coverage Inclusions & Exclusions Weighting Result (TERs created)
1 Firefox, IE Intel® i386, PowerPC® Windows XP, SUSE Minimal None Priority to Firefox, Intel, & Windows XP 2
2       Medium     4
3 Firefox, IE, Safari   Windows XP, SUSE, Mac OS X     Safari and Mac OS X priority 3. 9
4       Large     18
Related concepts
Test execution overview
Related tasks
Viewing existing test cases in a project

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